This invention relates to the field of medical devices, more particularly, the invention relates to a surgical drape support useable for oxygen supply and carbon dioxide sampling.
In surgery of the upper facial area, particularly eye surgery, a drape is placed over the face of a patient. Usually the drape is supported by a drape support which also allows the drape to cover the patient's face while allowing the patient to breathe. One of the most common drape support is typically affixed to the patient's face by adhering the ends thereof to the cheeks on each side of the patient's mouth. This drape support is in the form of a flexible non-corrugated cardboard strip having adhesive ends thereto which allow the drape support to be adhered to the patient's face. A drape is placed over the drape support to create a space between the patient's face and the drape thereby allowing the patient to breathe. Moreover, the drape protects the face, including the patient's nose and mouth, from surgical debris. The drape and drape support, however, make it impractical to place an oxygen mask over the patient's mouth and/or nose. Therefore, it is not easy to provide a patient with additional oxygen or air to breathe while the patient is draped. An oxygen supply tube can be typically taped to the side of a patient's mouth, which is covered by the drape, to supply the patient with sufficient oxygen for breathing.
Additionally, the patient's carbon dioxide level should be monitored to insure that the patient's anesthesia level and respiration are sufficient. Research has indicated that under surgical drapes, carbon dioxide levels can increase significantly, cause rebreathing of exhaled carbon dioxide, increased blood levels of CO.sub.2 followed by a change in a patient's mental status. In the past, monitoring the patient's respiration by sampling the level of carbon dioxide exhaled by the patient has been difficult. The standard of care would be to measure the carbon dioxide level of the patient. This is typically sampled by measuring continuous end-tidal crude method of ETCO.sub.2 sampling is affixing a tube to the chin, mouth or below the nostrils of a patient to allow the breath of the patient to be received therein. The sampling tube leads to a sampling machine which measures the ETCO.sub.2 level within the patient to help direct the level of anesthesia or aid in the detection of respiratory abnormalities including alveolar hypoventilation, apnea and/or obstruction.
The anesthesiologist is often faced with the problem of affixing and maintaining an oxygen supply tube and a carbon dioxide sampling tube to a patient's face. Preferably, these tubes should be placed near the patient's nostrils and/or mouth which are covered by a drape and may be partially obstructed by a drape support. However, it is often difficult and cumbersome to affix the oxygen supply tube and ETCO.sub.2 sampling tube to the patient's face. Nevertheless, it is necessary to maintain the supply of oxygen to the patient and to continue sampling the patient's carbon dioxide level.
It is therefore desirable to provide a drape support which facilitates the supply of oxygen to a patient.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a drape support which facilitates the monitoring of carbon dioxide levels of a patient.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a drape support which facilitates both the supply of oxygen to a patient and the monitoring of carbon dioxide levels to a patient while effectively supporting the drape over a patient's face.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a drape support which can also provide a means for supplying oxygen to a patient and for measuring the levels of carbon dioxide from a patient's breath.